Thread by @designmom

When I think about the military (obscene budgets, drones killing civilians, not caring for vets, etc.), I get super pissed off. So I tried to reframe. We’ve already paid for their budget, we're not getting that money back. What’s something good we could ask them to do. Like this:

Americans: We urgently need to get the WHOLE WORLD vaccinated before the next variant. Until the world is vaxxed, we won’t be safe.

US Military: Pick us! We're crappy at lots of stuff, but would be great in this case. We’re designed and organized for huge campaigns like this.

Americans: Hmmm. This doesn’t seem like your area of expertise.

US Military: Not true! Our entire purpose for existing is to keep the country safe — from ANY threat. Covid is the current most dangerous threat. So this is 100% our area of expertise. Put us to work. Use us.

Americans: Okay. But how will you pay for it?

US Military: That’s the best part. We have more money than God. The government just gave us $768 billion to use in 2022. And that was $24 billion more than we asked for. We’ve got the budget for this covered.

vox.com/22840615/us-de…

A: So then how would you solve this?

USM: Well, one of our biggest strengths is quickly gathering and relocating resources to where they are needed most. We already have infrastructure on the ground in many countries. We have about 500,000 active duty personnel. We can do this.

A: But what about the actual vaccines? How will you get them?

USM: We could buy them. Or we could give the vaccine formula to every country so they can manufacture them locally. Or, we could take over a manufacturing facility and make them ourselves.

Or heck, if Congress declares war on Covid, we can literally demand current manufactures do whatever we need. This is not a project we should wait for the "free market" to fix. It's a good place for government intervention.

A: Hold up. Isn’t the military full of anti-vaxxers?

USM: I mean, there are more than we’d prefer, but it’s not a huge concern. For example, by last month the Army and Navy were each 98% vaxxed, followed by the Air Force at 97.5%, and the Marine Corps at 95%.

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1…

A: I don’t know. This sounds expensive.

USM: I can not emphasize enough how much money we have. So much money, that we have no idea where huge portions of it go. We NEVER have to balance our budget or be responsible for tracking the dollars we spend.

nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opi…

I’m embarrassed to say it, but we facilitate more waste and financial corruption than pretty much any other organization in the world. Don’t worry about how to pay for this, because we essentially have a bottomless budget.

A: But...this seems like more of a doctor job.

USM: We hear you. And guess what: we have doctors in the military too! We have 5,000 active duty and reserve medical officers, and there are TONS of other medical personnel. For an intense, short campaign like this, I’ll bet we can get lots of civilian doctors involved too.

A: I’m not sure people will listen when you ask them to get a vaccine, lots of people don’t trust you.

USM: This is true. Outside of the US, we would need to make sure that trusted community leaders are the ones interacting with fellow citizens. But we can do that!

We can mobilize volunteers — locals who are willing to help out, the Peace Corps, service missionaries, etc. And remember we have endless budgets, so we could also hire people for this campaign and not rely on volunteers — which means we could even create new jobs!

We should also note that in the US, those who are most vaccine-hesitant have a big overlap with those who are most pro-military. So having the military ask people to get vaccinated “for the good of the country” and to “support our troops” could be very effective.

A: This just doesn’t seem feasible. Way too complex.

USM: I assure you we are trained for exactly this sort of undertaking. Quickly procuring vaccines, getting them to where they need to be, communicating how they should be distributed — these are all tasks where we would shine.

A: I’m still suspicious. What will you get out of it?

USM: Honestly, we could use some good PR right now. People are figuring out how often we waste money. Giving us a chance to save the world via a really efficient and effective vaccine rollout would be a big plus for us.

We believe volunteer enrollment would go up if people understood the military was capable of awesome stuff like this; campaigns that do practical work to protect people, versus endless military occupations and drone warfare that too often kills civilians.

theguardian.com/world/2022/jan…

A: Well, this is sounding like a no-brainer. But if all this is true, and you're so good at stuff like this, then why haven’t you figured out problems like housing and medical care for veterans who need it?

USM: We’re BAFFLED by this too. We’re asked to use money and resources for all sorts of unnecessary things (did you seek our jetpack?). But it’s like there’s some unwritten rule we can’t use time, energy, or money to fix the most basic community problems.

popularmechanics.com/military/aviat…

Like, if we were given a command to provide housing and healthcare for every veteran who needs it, we could literally take care of this in less than a week. We own buildings and land all over the country, in both urban and rural areas, including all the big cities.

Some of those buildings are actually living spaces — barracks, bunks, housing, that sort of thing. Or we could quickly build new housing on government land. We’re really good at doing that too. The military and government owns land everywhere.

Once you can see we’ve helped our veterans, perhaps you could also let us solve homelessness for everyone. We would love to do it. We have no idea why we haven’t been asked to do so. Just give us the command. We already have the money and resources.

A: So you really think you could get the whole world vaccinated in just a few months?

USM: Yes. We definitely could. Please ask us to do so! We're built for this. We exist for this. And if you don’t, the $768 billion will probably just go toward stuff that kills more civilians.